Vehicle cameras are commonly used for viewing an area immediately behind a rear bumper to see what might be behind the vehicle when backing up for parking. The after-market camera component is typically mounted to a license plate mounting of the vehicle. Vehicle cameras can also be useful for school buses to see if a child or object is in front of the bus or near the rear wheels of the bus. Similar uses can exist for semi-trailers, heavy trucks, snow removal equipment, etc. where the driver or operator needs improved vision around the vehicle.
Smartphones can have excellent computing capabilities and can be useful as a user interface for a variety of peripherals or uses. One example is an automotive rear view camera application. A wireless camera can be mounted at a rear of a vehicle to transmit images to a smartphone having a wireless data interface to provide a display of the images to the driver. Such cameras are useful for guiding a driver to back up a vehicle. Such rear view automotive cameras are typically wired into electrical power of the vehicle, this requires a modification that normally involves a professional installer. The requirement for professional installation can be a disincentive for consumers to purchase vehicle camera peripherals.
When a rear view camera is powered by a vehicle's backup lamp power, then the camera is powered only when a vehicle is in reverse. While this involves a wired installation, this resolves the issue of triggering of the camera to operate when needed. Other wired installations have the camera always transmit the video, while the display device is controlled to be on or off.
When using a smartphone as the display device, the smartphone needs to be placed in a state in which it is able to run software to display the video. In known systems, this involves typically a user selecting the app and running it in the foreground.
The camera peripheral also needs to be triggered to operate if it is desired for it to be normally in a low power or off state except when the camera needs to be viewed.
With the Google Android® operating system, a program or app can be given by the user special permission to run in the background, such that when video is transmitted from a camera to the smartphone the latter can respond by displaying the video. With the current Apple iOS® operating system, an app cannot be given permission to run continuously in the background. Furthermore, a background app in iOS cannot use the display for presenting the camera video. iOS® devices represent a significant portion of mobile computing devices in use that are suitable to display camera video, and thus it is a problem that user input is required with iOS® devices to allow camera video to be displayed when it is time to display the video.